Neural mining seems to have become a “stickier” subject matter, or at least a little more widely referenced and harder to scrub, but I still want to note this here just in case. Anse Daems’ article brings us an entire section discussing the neural mining revelation - and Cariappa was involved in the discovery.
Anse Daems - Neural Mining discovery:
In September 2040, Daems profiled Sunil Cariappa in his role as organiser of the Canadian pilot programme of G6. Cariappa had requested Daems for the profile because of their previous collaboration on the WNW reporting about the CMD pandemic.
While reviewing materials for the profile in Pipeline, WNW’s internal tool for constructing knowledge graphs to connect disparate pieces of information, Daems found a deleted reference to an older WNW article about the neural colloid trials that Zhupao had conducted in Canada between July 2038 and May 2039. [2] The article mentioned a possible connection between multiple participants in the Canadian colloid trials and a reported rise in cases of neuroglycopenia, which were later diagnosed as CMD.
After discovering more recent cases of neuroglycopenia that were being similarly confused with CMD, Daems attributed them to the prolonged continuous use of colloids, which are powered by biobatteries that oxidise glucose in the brain. This indicated that the colloids in the Canadian trials and the G6 pilot programmes were being pinged for live montages for periods that far exceeded the requirements of medical neurostimulation or CMD-specific biosurveillance.
In response, Daems reached out to Cariappa, expressing her belief that Connie Muren had discovered the mass neural mining and was “taken out” by Zhupao for planning to reveal it. Cariappa worked with Efua Amankwah-Crouse to investigate the matter and found that G6 was being used to train semantic thought models on neurometric and neurobehavioural data that was being mined through the colloids intended to diagnose CMD.
Daems reported their discovery to Sajjadi, arguing that Zhupao’s failure to disclose the neural mining constituted a breach of Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) because the development of neurometrics could turn the acquired neural data into personally identifiable information. Sajjadi organised a WNW investigation in collaboration with Daems and Amankwah-Crouse, which was published on November 1st 2040. [3]
Zhupao responded by issuing a full disclaimer and suing WNW for libel, which led to financial difficulties for the company. On November 13th 2040, Sajjadi was replaced by Sebastian Rummens, who immediately launched a significant restructuring of WNW that included the dismissal of Daems. [4]
The associated documentary is listed on WNW’s article now, too:
- Gathering Your Thoughts (November 2040), an exposé about Zhupao’s illegal neural mining operation.